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| 1. |
These applications have triggered City reviews for potential
historical significance. This has happened because City ordinances require that
any structure built in or before 1945 be so evaluated and each appears to
pre-date 1945.
The idea of historical resources outside the “original city”
surprised me a bit. But then I realized that was only because my “historic
Davis” mindset was formed by those dozens of maps drawn between 1917 and 1945
that show “the city” to be basically bounded by A, First, Seventh and L.
When the City formed a “historical conservation” district in 2001, this same area was adopted as the locale to which the district applied. The image on the cover of the Conservation District Guidelines reproduced here emblazons it as THE defining visualization in all matters preservation (images 1 and 2).
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| 2. |
But, the additional historical fact is that long before the
first city expansion of it’s boundaries in 1946, people were building on
property just outside the 1917/official city. It turns out there are quite a
few such structues--and many more than one might realize before looking into
the matter.
One indicator of the magnitude of this beyond-the-borders
expansion is provided by a March 27, 1942 Davis
Enterprise report of Yolo County officials starting to try to get a handle
on building “in the county,” and to apply zoning regulations to it. (image 3)
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| 3. |
Seeking a little more specificity, I then looked at aerial
photos of Davis taken by the illustrious Susanville post card maker and
high-resolution photographer Jervie Eastman.
He photographed Davis from the air in 1946, a year close
enough for our purposes here.
As can be seen in images 4 and 5 (and including areas to the
west not shown), there were at least several dozen homes outside the 1917 City.
(There are, in addition, clusters of buildings along what we now call “Olive
Drive,” also not shown here.)
The context for understanding that “several dozen” is a
large number is the fact that when counted in the year 2000, there were only
330 surviving buildings built before 1945 inside the 1917 City (image
6). A significant number of them have since been demolished, remodeled out of
character, or moved from the City.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
So, in the absence of changing the historical evaluation
triggering year from 1945 to some more recent year, these “outlying” structures
represent an important portion of the stock of historical resource potential.
Of course, when evaluated for historical significance, only
a very, very small number in either location will be judged to have such
significance.
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| 6.* |
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